faderift | Did I go at it wrong? Did I go intentionally to destroy me?

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Did I go at it wrong? Did I go intentionally to destroy me?

WHO: Zevran and You
WHAT: Zevran back at Skyhold, Recovering
WHEN: Mid to late guardian, covering a span of time
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: CW/TW FOR: Mentions of torture, withdrawal, suicidal ideation, swearing, self loathing, etc. Shit gets dark. This log is also for characters not on the rescue long. Locked thread below will be done on first come, first serve.

[ His Quarters ]

Good day

Sometimes it's good. He's tired from the trip, tired from the ordeal- but he'll see people. Play cards, answer questions- as many as he can stand. Nothing about the side of his face he has hidden under a bandage, nothing about what was done to him- but he'll describe Antiva. Mention how gallant and ridiculously awesome his rescuers were. Share coffee or brandy or whatever he has on hand- and make light. He tires easily early on in his recovery, but later? He might converse for an hour or so before needing a break. Alistair sees most people in and out as needed.

Bad day

Early on he spends more time alone, quiet and isolated, Alistair a silent, stoic wall between him and the world. Notes will be passed along as well wishes- but he'll only see the most demanding and even then? He'll be listless. Snappish. Frustrated that they forced their way and company upon him when he would rather be left in peace.

[ Stables ]

Good day

A target on the far wall and a dagger in his hands, he's attempting to learn to compensate for the eye- under a leather patch now that neatly hides both the eye and his new scars, and talking a small group of strange new students as they work on...carving toys. Or sketching one another. Or working on a lute- a difference from the lessons he'd been giving before. But they do as they're told and laze about while he works on the throwing, or while he walks them through a particular shading technique, curl of the knife, or chord. Even when they're dismissed he continues with the throwing, aim slowly circling about to something better.

Bad day

When his patience with himself is at it's limit, when he's climbing the walls for want to get away from Alistair's oppressive hovering, when he cannot bear to even teach, he hides in the rafters of the stable. More likely than not there is a bottle of wine or brandy or something stronger still hanging from his fingers, head tipped into the shadows as he drums his fingers against his chest. Until Alistair or Beleth hunt him down, he means to remain there, high above where most people don't think to look.

[ Clearing Outside of Skyhold ]

Later in his recovery, when the worst of it is settled, no matter his temperament he is out running drills with those same students, agility drills, knife drills, a highly acrobatic and complicated looking game of tag or one of the most terrifying rounds of hide and seek possible while he lounges under a tree, calling out corrections or instructions. A bottle of wine, a basket of bread and dried sausages. When his mood is poor and his patience low he runs with them, pushing himself to the point of surly exhaustion. When it is high he sits and drinks and sketches out various shapes of armor, tools- things they may need.

[ Battlements - Locked to Bruce, Sabine, Martel, Mia, and Nahariel ]

On the darkest nights he cannot sleep. Not for all the wine in skyhold, not for all the sleeping spells and draughts available. To close his eyes is to see the fade- to be back on that hook, back in that cell with the blood and whispering. The Shades. He's back with the choice- the knife in his hand and the order in his ear. Wakes to find Alistair, so quiet so trusting. It would take nothing. When the weight of this is too much he walks up, out, finds himself a perch, sitting on the edge of the battlements, peering down at the rocks below. All he has to do is lean. All he needs to do is let go. It would be so very easy to let go, to be done. Maker above, he wants to. Even when he has found it in himself to take a step back, to return to bed; another night might have him back on the battlements once again, considering the drop.

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It's chance that brings her out here, though she sometimes walks the battlements at night when sleep eludes her. There is a calm and quiet that soothes, that pushes away the things that keep her dreams less than pleasant. She certainly doesn't expect to see anyone save a passing guard or scout.

Imagine her surprise, then, to notice a very familiar figure in the shadows, the white mountainside beyond the keep's walls casting him in sharp relief against it. But he's too close to the edge, far too--

"Zevran."

It is perhaps the first time she's addressed him as such, lacking the usual tart bite she addresses him with. Instead it's hushed, stunned, but in the silence? It carries.

He lists a little at the sound of his name, barely turning to hear her. He does not turn away from the long drop or the snow swirling in the air under his bare feet. No reason to ruin boots with a fall. Even if he is not so certain that he will be falling. "...Mia."

Not mia Bella, not little lion, not my lady. Her name as she has used his. it feels awkward in his tongue, but then everything of him feels ill formed and awkward, like a garment rent and stitched back together improperly.

The few nights he's been like this, he's never been disturbed. Bad enough that he had these nights- but a witness to his weakness? "Admiring the view as well?"

[Zevan, to put it mildly, had looked terrible in his initial return to Skyhold. Detlef had clearly tried everything he could but the damage done to him had been extensive and brutal. The only real cure that would work would be time. Time and care and effort.

Though that recovery would only be skin deep. In the days after his return where Bruce was around to attend to Zevran and his injuries while Detlef was recovering from his exhaustion and the other healers did not dare approach the elf little was spoken between them - Zevran was unwilling to speak and Bruce knew better than to try and pry any sort of response from the elf. He could see it from the way he moved, how he acted, the silence that hung around him. Bruce understood enough to not try and cause Zevran and his friends any more distress.

So on this particular night when Bruce came in late to check on Zevran he was quick to notice the missing elf. But rather than panic there was a sort of calm acceptance that came over him, an inevitability that clicked in his mind.

Instead of alerting anybody Bruce simply stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him. After a moment's thought, he made his way to the battlements.

Once he was there, it didn't take long before Bruce spotted the elf. He paused around the corner, thinking again, watching the way Zevran sits so precariously at the edge. Just a little tilt forward and he'd fall all the way down. The valleys below would be too rough for anybody to ever be able to find the body. It would be fast and clean and easy.

That thought sits in his head for a full minute before Bruce puts it at the back of his mind and approaches Zevran. He slows his steps when he comes close enough, making sure he walks loudly so that the elf can hear him, eventually coming to a stop when he's right next to him. He doesn't say anything however, only opting to watch Zevran closely - to wait until the elf is ready to speak.]

Edited 2016-02-09 08:19 (UTC)

[ All mends in time. Wounds scab over and scar, bones set, grief fades. But what of the mind? The longer he stays, the longer Alistair picks and frets, the more he realized that, yes, all his daggers and poisons had been removed from the room, every tool of his trade locked away for his safety, the angrier he became. There are none he would act against save himself and if they were so concerned-

He can't say they needn't be. Over and over he had jumped, had cut, had drunk to spare those that they bid him kill. Over and over he jarred himself awake on the hook- and the longer it went the more he wished that perhaps it would be death in truth.

Simply so it might end.

Here, every morning Alistair and his sad eyes, every day the questions, the concerns, the attempts to get him to speak on that which he would rather forget. The oppressive weight of expectation that he bounce back and smile- and some days he can even manage it. Cobble a mask together. Pretend for a little while that everything is fine while screaming inside for space, for silence, for an end to the ache in his bones and the blood he can still taste on the back of his tongue.

Closer to the edge than he's ever been and all it would take is the barest shifting of his weight. So little for so much.

Bruce, endlessly patient, infuriatingly placid for their treatments, such as they were and the conversations he avoided. Of course Bruce is here to make a quiet suggestion, to damn him by being kind. ]

Did Alistair send you?

Nobody sent me.

[He says it quietly but pointedly. If Alistair knew what was happening right now all of Skyhold would be awakened by the Warden's frantic worry. No, Alistair was (probably) asleep right now, wholly unaware of what was going on. But who knows if that was better or worse. Bruce knows better than to try and guess that.

He casts a glance down to the blackness below, the valleys at the bottom now shadowed by the night. It would be far too easy to hide a body down there. Several bodies, maybe even countless. The walls here wouldn't hurt to be a little higher.

He turns his gaze back to Zevran and gets right to the point.] Are you planning to do it?

Will you haul me back to him by my ears if I say yes?

[ He's always planned on dying first. Not quite like this- not in years has this solution come to mind. Then he had nothing but a yawning ache where a person ought to be and the knowledge that nothing he did would change it. Nothing would matter. Now...

Now it is not so much that there is no reason to remain. There is plenty- he simply cannot bring himself to care. Every inch of him aches on a good day, every thought coiled back on itself under the line of 'this is not true, this is not real', every night he is back on the hook with that magic in his mind, twisting his thoughts, his memories. He cannot bear another night of staring awake at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to take him, another day of pretending all is well for Alistair's peace of mind. ]

She had not been to see him since he returned. Not in his waking hours, at least. She has glanced at Alistair’s face, worried and pale, and she has seen the scars and the leather patch. Never had Leliana stayed long enough to see him stir, or even for Alistair to need to usher her away. The visits were fleeting and did not require a full hand to count.

Even now she has been aware of his work for his eye, in the stables, and she has considered descending from her tower to watch over his work with the students. The thoughts have never progressed beyond that, never spurred her heels to have her address him. She cannot actually think how long it has been, other than too long, and it sparks a painful weight in her chest and in her gut. One life could not sway the Inquisition. Necessity was what drove her - but protecting those precious few that were dear to her, who truly knew her, that was necessary to her, and she had failed in it. She had failed the Inquisition by allowing Crows into their very midst, and she had failed Zevran in the same stroke.

It is dusk before she finally moves from her tower, and she is approaching quietly, even if she allows deliberate cracks of twigs underfoot to let him know someone draws near. The sky is painted in pinks and oranges, Skyhold looming and black against the brilliance of the sky.

“Zevran.” Can I join you? or Do you mind some company? would both be excellent questions, were it not for her dread as to the response such a question might beg.

I could, but you and I both know that it won't change anything.

[If Zevran truly wishes for it then the elf will probably find a way to do it, somehow or other. No matter what precautions Alistair might try to take or how much he and others hover around Zevran, if the elf really wanted to do it, then he'd make it happen. One way or another.

The fact that he still hasn't, though, says something. What that something is, however, that's for Zevran himself to decide.

The wind howls as it blows by, and Bruce feels the hairs on his arms standing up at the chill that comes in; he rubs at his wrists, fingers feeling the ends of his own numerous scars.]

What you want to do here is your own choice, Zevran. I'm not here to tell you what you should and shouldn't be doing.

Ever since Zevran has stopped holing himself up in his room, Sam had grown somewhat accustomed to seeing him and his little 'flock' in the stables. He's yet to actually meet them, always giving a bit of a wide berth when he did his training in the area, but constantly feeling like he was being watched.

So it's a bit curious when he doesn't see the lot of them practicing whichever craft set for the day, but he doesn't take it to heart, figuring perhaps they had chosen a change of scenery.

Without Araceli there for the time, Sam simply works on climbing the wall and back down again, comfortable in doing that much on his own, but not the falling. Even so after a couple rounds he finds himself on top of the barn, just enjoying being up on top, and taking a peak down through the hatch in the roof.

It isn't so strange to spot someone in the rafters, but it still surprises him when he spots the boot. Curious to know who was lounging around way up there, Sam pokes his head down, brows raising when he catches a glimpse of the assassin skulking up on the beam.

"Zevran?"

No one ever looks up. But people do, on occasion, look down. He'd forgotten about Araceli's lessons, about those that might climb up on the barn and hop down. Halfway through a bottle of wine and all the background noise of Skyhold becomes just that.

Noise.

What matter of paranoia could do him any good if it didn't help him before? He didn't care to bother trying for the day and for that, Sam surprises him by peering down. Zevran grunts, shifting on the beam to get further from the sun that slats in through he few holes yet in the roof, and takes another swig from the bottle. "What?"

What are you doing up here?

The first thing that comes to mind, but the terse question has him quickly keeping his mouth shut and rethinking on the next thing he should say. The gaze he can almost see and the sharp punctuation of his word reminds the mage of when he had hit the assassin back when with a snowball, though the silent fury worries him more than that shouting ever could.

For a long moment Sam doesn't say anything, mulling over his thoughts, not quite sure how to press on considering this was a change run in. "Taking a break from lessons for the day I take it?"

Edited 2016-02-09 09:46 (UTC)

He hadn't expected her. Leliana had an Inquisition to mind, a security breach of startling magnitude to mind and countries to subjugate with her mysteries and secrets. She'd turned back to the life she'd known before the Blight with an ease Zevran had almost envied but now? Now he might question it.

That she hasn't said anything of those he kept, those he trained. That she has not sent so much as a letter, that she has not, as best as he could tell, said anything to Alistair on the matter.

But for Leliana the spy the only thing one could do to tease something out- was wait.

So he waits.

Has his good days, has his rough ones. Minds the newly freed Crows, minds himself. Settles into his new skin little by little and attempts to come to terms with what it means, what it makes him. Tries to loathe the idea of being seen a little less. Some days are easier than others.

"Leliana." A word, a pause, a gesture to the hollow at his side. Even if he had been in no mood for company- she is reaching out. He is obligated to listen.

And what, precisely, would you know of this?

[ What behind those crooked smiles or hollow words, what behind his too kind patience could possibly understand the ragged desperation with which he clings to the stone under his hands. The wind howls and he shudders with it- listing.

It would take so very little for him to blow away. To blow apart like a scattering of leaves.

Some days he looks about and remains uncertain that this has not already come to pass.

The wind howls and Zevran aches straight through his bones with the longing that it might take the choice from his hands. Slip him from the stone and carry him down, far from Bruce and his condescending attempts to understand. ]

Why are you here?

How are you? It seems such a foolish question, so naive. How had she been, when Marjolaine had her tossed to the dogs? How had she been with so much hate and hurt burning through her?
She had needed time. At least she had Dorothea and the promise of faith and the hope of salvation. Those were not, she suspects, things that would comfort Zevran now. Better that he had time, and he had space.

A long moment passes before she tries to find words. It is easier to speak of business and practicality, than it is to acknowledge how she failed him.

"I was surprised you chose to keep them on," she finally offers, though she has done nothing to close the distance between them. "The Crows deserved a harsher lesson."

They deserved to be burned to the ground and the earth salted. They deserved worse for harming Zevran, and for daring to raise a hand against the Inquisition.

"Ah." So it is not Leliana that is here, but Sister Nightingale. He adjusts his expectations and posture accordingly, drawing himself up from he indolent sprawl into something a bit more defensible. Proud, if wary, former scraps of good humor tucked away until such a time as he might have his sister in arms back.

That he can draw so neat a line between the two is distressing.

"You know as well as I, they had no choice in the matter." Do as you are told or die. Do well, or die. He'd offered them a similar choice on the road with a dagger and a nod to their chains. Die by their hand, die by his, run for the hills-

Or swear their loyalty to him and he will make them safe. "The Crows received a harsh lesson. Those I took on are no more crows than I when Jonas spared me."

I'm here because you're here, Zevran.

[He continues speaking quietly, patiently, totally unaffected with the rising snap of Zevran's retorts. He's faced far worse things than an assassin with a death wish. Faced them and battled them and in some cases, lost. Lost terribly.

But yet he still lives. On some days Bruce can't help but wonder himself on the reasons of why he's still around.]

I may not know everything, but-- [Its true; Bruce can perhaps never come to truly understand all of Zevran's struggles. But he understands enough to know where the elf comes from, at least for what he's doing right now. What he wishes to do. What he wishes the world to do for him. Its always easier to let things pass when you knew it wasn't within your control.

(Control. Hah.)]

--I know the Crows were everything for you. [And now they're gone. Or rather, they carved out everything about themselves from Zevran. Except that everything about them was literally everything about Zevran.]

Edited 2016-02-09 09:50 (UTC)

For a moment there is blessed silence and he thinks, perhaps, that Sam has gone about his way. Resumed his climbing and jumping with the dull thud of boots on wood to lull him into some manner of half doze. Not the best lullaby but far from the worst he's had.

And then Sam speaks and no, he is not alone for all he might wish to be.

Zevran cracks an eye- the only one that matters- open to roll it in his direction. "Taking a break from people and their questions."

Such as 'why are you here' or 'how are you feeling' or 'take a walk it'll help, won't it'?

You know nothing of me, less of the Crows.

[ Even those that knew shades of it, even those that he'd saved from them- they know nothing of the cell he'd lived in, nothing of the masters that shaped him, of the assassins that lived with and loved him, the men that owned him and the blood they spilled together. Nothing of the lives he took that weighed upon him, few as they were.

They know nothing of how he was held to the grindstone and forced to take shape. Nothing of how he chose to cut back.

Bruce knows nothing of what it cost him that first day when the choice was taken from him on the dusty road of Ferelden.

Nothing of what it takes him to hold fast and pretend that, perhaps, tomorrow it will not be so horrid. ]

They made me what I am and I turned it against them. They hate me for living. [ The one thing they have in common. ] I made myself better than they ever could. They are nothing to me.

It is a terrible thing, to see a friend withdraw upon the realisation of what you are. Zevran, he is one who she has never seen draw away from her. Not like this, but then the days when he meets the Nightingale are rarer. She holds herself taut as a bowstring pulled full stretch.

"There is always a choice, Zevran." Quiet, an admission of her own guilt, more than theirs, though she spares them little consideration. She would have sooner seen their throats slit than have them cross the threshold of the Inquisition. She is, perhaps, a little emotionally at times.

This is not going quite as she'd hoped. She has no idea what she'd hoped for, other than better than this. Perhaps it would be better to get this over with, to allow Zevran peace and a chance to be alone and lick his wounds, rather than her presence.

"I-- came to apologise," she starts, and the words sound stiff and awkward. For one so eloquent, she still fumbles with her words, from time to time.

"Death is not a choice." He snaps, perhaps a little too loud, a little too harsh, a little too frustrated. True, he'd chosen that road, that contract in hopes that he would die, but he did not choose death. Every hour of every day since his return, he's chosen to keep moving. Death is not a choice.

Life is a choice.

"They wanted something better. Who am I to deny them what I was given so freely ten years ago? What makes my life worth sparing over theirs?" Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But then the Sister would not know this- and would not care. They are threats to the Inquisition but on this- he will fight her.

He will lose, most likely, but he will make a valiant attempt for their lives.

"...for what?" That- that he does not expect. "For- the Crows?"

What?

"How can you possibly blame yourself for this?" Guilt. Guilt like Alistair's guilt and for a heated, visceral moment he wishes she would take it and leave. He cannot carry it. He can barely carry himself most days, how is he to hold these things as well?

But they were your life.

[No matter how much Zevran tries to deny that or undermine that fact, it still holds true. He said it just as much himself - they made him what he was now. Like it or not, the Crows were part of his life, even if it had taken a drastically different path since then.]

They raised you and taught you everything you knew. [So of course they knew how to break him, too. They knew what made him tick and what would unravel him and knew what would get to him underneath the masks he wears. They knew it and they used it like the tools they're so expertly trained in. Like how Zevran was trained in.] Until you left them, they had been everything.

[Bruce says it all plaintively, like its nothing but facts off a book, items being ticked off a list. His voice remains calm the entirely time, his expression entirely passive.]

It strikes a cord, a painful one. Death is not a choice to be taken by those whose life it would claim, nor by others to press it upon another. Those thoughts are too soft, too merciful. They cannot belong to the Nightingale.
She all but sneers. "A different time, with different risks." And she was not Jonas. The man who spared Zevran was also the man who labelled Leliana different to Marjolaine.

"This is my Inquisition." Her words blister as they meet the air, vicious, burning things. "

I allowed Crows to infiltrate us, to move amongst us unhindered through my negligence. I am the Nightingale. I am the keeper of secrets, the one who must make sure that we remain uncorrupted by those with malicious intent." This is beyond the horrors inflicted on her friend, yet Zevran's eye, Zevran being dragged back to the very place he had been so desperate to escape years ago, those are the things crowding her head. Still, she presses on, crisp and cold and stern. "Do you think that is of no consequence? Do you think that the only risk was to you? They could have done far more, and it is a precious mercy that they did not set their sights beyond you."

Too much. Too far. "But what has happened is unforgivable." And that burden belongs to her, to the one who manages scouts and agents and eyes and ears.

Edited 2016-02-09 10:16 (UTC)

Sam purses his lips a bit at the way Zevran snaps out the response, head ducking up just a tad when he rolls his eye towards him and gives him a look. He's not particularly fond of seeing or hearing Zevran like this, but considering certain events the elf does have good reason for all of it.

"Sitting up in the rafters is hardly going to stop that from happening." Not a question. His brows raise again with his reply, now curious to why of all places to hide away from others did Zevran pick the stables. Course he doesn't ask since Zevran was not in the mood for questions.

They were a prison.

[ Bruce does not know- and does not care. What does it matter to him what Zevran endured? What his life had truly been like in the cell. He will not look at him with pity- or worse- with that unbearable guilt. No. He will simply look at him as though he understands when there is no single shade, no single hardship in even his many scarred life that could compare to the violations Zevran endured, invited, and pretended to enjoy simply to continue breathing unmolested for a few days. ]

Whores raised me. The Crows trained me and taught me to kill. I already knew how to lie.

[ To pretend to smile, pretend to care, to hold close all that he thought and felt and put on a pleasing mask for the enjoyment of others. Sentiment is dangerous and leads to nothing but more blood, more pain, more ways to be hurt. ]

Do not stand there and pretend to understand what it was like. You are human and a man. What the fuck do you know?

"And so we come to the heart of it. This is not about me at all, but your Inquisition and your pride." He spreads his hands wide, smile sharply crooked. "Keeper of secrets, assassin of malicious intent. The one that kills and lies to further only the most noble of causes. I should be grateful that all they wished was my head on a pike and not that they might turn their blades against you and your precious advisors in their beds. I shall add that to my daily prayers. 'Thank you, Maker, for sparing the throats of the Inquisition'. How gracious of you to remind me."

Humans and their pride. Orlesians and their bard. The Chantry and it's sordid intent wrapped up in the most well meaning of banners. He's not certain what he loathes more. That Justinia called upon Leliana- or that she allowed herself to be pulled into this and bought the lies so willingly.

"Yes, what has happened is unforgivable." He will not take this sitting down. With some scraps of the fluid grace he used to hold Zevran pushes himself to his feet, glowering at her. "What has happened is you have thrown yourself head first into the very life you professed to loathe with all the trappings and lip service you paid in Lothering. If you are to be a spy and an assassin be a spy and an assassin. Do not wrap it in pretty words and noble intent as though that makes this nation wide variation of the Game that nearly killed you any better than what Marjolaine bid done."

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Did I go at it wrong? Did I go intentionally to destroy me?

Battlements

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Battlements (cw: suicide ideation)

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clearing

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Stables - Bad Day

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